Page:The Lessons of the German Events (1924).djvu/12

 erred in October or May. The important question is, why we erred.

Comrades, there is a period in our history that goes right up to the March struggle. What period is this? The period when we strove to set the capture of power as an active task before us. Since 1920, since our defeat in Poland, it was clear that the tide of revolution was on the ebb, and that our main task must be to win over the majority of the proletariat. How did we come to fix this task? The Party could not proceed further with the effort to capture power without approaching closer to the tactic of first organising the majority of the proletariat. It soon became clear that neither we, in Moscow, nor the comrades here, observed in time that a change in the situation had taken place. Only when we were unexpectedly attacked did the scales fall from our eyes, and we said the situation has changed: we must first of all win over the masses, This period of winning over the masses by agitation and propaganda lasted until the Ruhr war. Then we could no longer win them over merely by propaganda, and we had to go over to action. And again the situation arose that we were on the eve of another revolutionary tide which neither we in Moscow nor you there saw in time.

Well, does this mean that the leadership was Social-Democratic? No. The leadership of the German Communist Party is better than in any other country where we have mass parties, and this for one simple reason: in no other country had we the struggle that we had in Germany. We had the Marxian training. There was the fight against Kautsky, and there is the great experience of the revolution. Naturally, the leadership has Social-Democratic features, just as there are comrades that betray the complete failure to understand the meaning of mass movements, and who have never been Social-Democrats. The leadership of the Party is made of the elements that we possess. It is not made out of air.

For this reason the most important question for me, alter having thus defined the causes of our defeat, is what next?

Before replying, we must first of all establish the following. First of all we must discover who is ruling in Germany. In every situation the leader of a mass action must first of all know the opponent against whom he is to lead the struggle. The controversy over the question as to whether Fascism had conquered or not, was settled not by words but by facts. It was settled by the fact that the bourgeoisie, by military means, drove back the working class and thrust the Stinnes programme upon it, and that the working class fled. I can understand your opposition as long as you thought that we were still able to attack and that we were barring our road by formulas which Comrade Zinoviev thought meant capitulation. At that time your opposition had another meaning. When, however, dear comrades, you will be compelled to argue for another year whether Fascism has